I’m pretty much a
skeptic across the board—I don’t really believe in the supernatural in any
capacity. This might seem incongruous
with my love of horror fiction and horror movies. Or maybe not.
I’m guessing there are few people who think that vampires, werewolves,
zombies, and masked, near-immortal killers, etc., actually exist. Reading
or viewing frightening yet unreal subject matter is a nice escape, and a fun
(for some), safe, way to scare yourself in an entertaining way.
However, despite my
strong doubts, I still do like scary, allegedly true stories. Especially about ghosts. I used to be very frightened by any ghost
characters, almost including the Boo-Berry cereal ghost, and as an adult I
still get a thrill from them. Telling
stories around a campfire, or, even once, in the attic of an abandoned,
dilapidated house, is still my idea of a good time. Even if it is more like an appreciation of
the tales as folklore.
So, with this
disclaimer out of the way, I’d like to relay my one and only personal spooky
story, followed by a few from friends.
Mine was over a decade ago. A
friend and coworker of mine, who I’ll call Greg (because that’s his name) was
employed at Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia,
PA as a tour guide. Eastern
State ceased functioning
as an active prison in 1970, but it’s been declared a National Landmark, and is
open for tours. Greg took us on the
usual tour one Saturday afternoon, which was great. I highly recommend Eastern State
as a tourist destination. It was the
first real penitentiary in the U.S.,
and was initially designed upon the Quaker idea of forcing prisoners to take
stock of their lives, repent, and become law-abiding citizens. This meant every single prisoner was given
his own solitary confinement cell, and, aside from a Bible and a brief daily
trip outside his cell to a walled in yard affixed to the cell, had no
diversions. No visitors, no mail, no
conversation, for however many years the sentence was. The guards even wore socks over their shoes
to muffle their footsteps as they walked down the corridors outside. Obviously, solitary confinement is now
reserved for an extreme punishment, but the designers thought they were being
kind. Who knows how many relatively
minor thieves, etc., were driven mad by this?
Architecturally
it’s pretty cool, tool. One of the cell
blocks is laid out like a giant wheel, with the central hub being where the
guards stayed, and each prison wing as a spoke, so guards could spin around and
see every section fairly quickly. After
over crowding became an issue, and perhaps, people realized how terrible
solitary confinement was, Eastern State eventually became like a regular prison
in 1913, up until its closing in 1970.
It had its famous convicts—Willie Sutton served there, and escaped
temporarily in a tunnel. Al Capone did
too, and his cell is preserved. It’s
very reminiscent of the scene in “Goodfellas” depicting how relatively posh
high Mob guys had it inside, with more room, gourmet food and drink, etc. Eastern
State has a weird location,
too—initially it was on the outskirts of the city, but over time Philadelphia grew out and
around it, so you have the giant stone walls of a massive prison just sitting
in the middle of a city neighborhood.
Anyway, to sum up, and cut this a little shorter, I think Eastern State is a worthwhile visit for many
reasons.
Back to my
story. Greg had a set of keys to Eastern State, and said he’d spent the night
there a couple of times. As it got
closer to Halloween we were intrigued.
Finally, one Saturday eight of us went to Philadelphia, had an awesome Italian dinner,
and then
went over to the prison to camp out. Some of us were more into the spooky vibe
than others, but we were all excited. I
wanted to try to creep myself out but setting up my sleeping bag in an isolated
cell by myself, etc.
Alas, there was a
snag. It quickly became apparent that an
official ghost chasing group had rented the place for the night. Obviously, since we hadn’t paid, we weren’t
supposed to be there. Greg was in a
bind, so as a compromise, he snuck us into the Administration Building
near the front of the prison. Even this
was atmospheric and cool—a giant tower to climb; abandoned, paint-flaked rooms;
and deserted ominous stone hallways.
When we were finally ready to call it a night, seven of us stayed in one
room at the end of the hallway, while one guy stayed in a nearby room closer to
the single, long stairwell to the second floor.
Greg, Herb, and myself were still awake, talking quietly, when it
happened. Slow, plodding, fairly loud
footsteps, coming up the staircase.
After we confirmed that all of us had heard it, I rushed down the
hallway and stood at the top of the stairs, and shown a flashlight down
it. Nothing to see, or hear
further. No eerie cold spots, or
inexplicable feelings of terror, etc. I
recall noting that the one guy on his own (Hi Scott) was still in his room
sleeping, so there we are—I can’t explain the footsteps. About fifteen minutes later all hell broke loose. We heard more footsteps coming up the stairs,
but these were made by obvious sources—the ghost chasers and another tour guide
found us in our “bedroom.” The employee
noted Greg, and said they’d talk later.
They left, and after a couple of hours of sleep, we packed up and left,
too. This story has a bad ending, as the following Monday Greg was fired. It was just bad luck—any other weekend no one
would have known.
Now, I’m
certainly not claiming this is proof of anything. I’m pretty sure Scott was accounted for, and
wasn’t making the footstep sounds (possibly by going up the spiral staircase
that went to the tower roof), but I’m not 100%.
Or, the ghost chasers were about—maybe they were walking around
somewhere nearby, and we heard the echoes.
We were drinking, so there’s that, too.
I don’t think any of us were drunk, but “half in the bag” or “buzzed” is
probably accurate. But, like I said, I
couldn’t explain the noises at the time, and it was fun in a mildly disturbing
way.
My next story is
second hand. When I think about it, I
should be a prime candidate for experiencing ghost activity. I’ve exhumed hundreds of graves, and, I’ve
stayed in hundreds (thousands?) of hotel rooms in my long archaeological
career. Because people dying in hotel
rooms is, I understand, a fairly common phenomenon. Clearly, being by yourself, away from home,
in a sometimes dingy room, can be depressing, so suicides probably make up a
fair bit of the deaths. Plus, things
like heart attacks, overdoses, and strokes aren’t unusual, either. Just looking at the numbers, the odds seem
pretty strong that a room I stayed in must have been the scene of a death at
least once or twice. But still, nothing
unexplainably weird so far.
Anyway, my friend
Dave was staying in a room, in a regular, random hotel. His room had an adjoining door to his next
door neighbor’s room. (Something which I
try my hardest to avoid. Thin walls are
problematic enough in some hotels, for noise disturbances. But an adjoining door sometimes makes it seem
like you’re in the room with them. Which
is especially awkward when there’s amorous activity going on. (And doubly so when you know the neighboring
room is occupied by only one person!))
After a while Dave started to hear his neighbors messing around with the
adjoining door, and being noisy in general.
Whispering, children’s laughter, rattling of the adjoining door’s knob,
knocking, that type of thing. When this
wouldn’t stop he called the front desk to complain. The employee was sympathetic, but said they
didn’t know what was happening, as the room wasn’t being rented out. The noises continued. Finally Dave went down to the lobby, and had
the employee come back with him. They
opened up the door to his neighbor’s room, and the employee was correct—the
room was empty, and showed zero signs of any recent human presence.
And one more
hotel story. This tale was relayed to me
about twenty years ago, so my grasp of the details is more tenuous. A crew was staying in a fairly crappy hotel
in Maryland. The crew started noticing things that were “off.” Noises, feelings of being watched, stuff like
that. Then they discovered that the
hotel was built upon the site of a Civil War amputated limbs cemetery. (Because in those primitive medical days,
amputation was distressingly frequent.)
Most dramatically, my friend Laura one night felt an invisible someone
sit down on the bed next to her, and even saw the depression form on the bed
underneath “nothing.” At some other
point the spirit became more active, and pulled the bed covers off of her. (Again, hazy on the details, but I’m guessing
she immediately (and understandably) switched rooms.)
This does raise
some interesting questions. Mainly,
why? Aren’t ghosts normally situated
where their bodies died, or a place they frequented? I didn’t think, say, a disembodied arm could
haunt somebody, and how, since it presumably wouldn’t have a consciousness,
soul, etc.. I guess maybe a bunch of
guys died during the amputations, maybe nearby, and that’s the
explanation. But part of me is oddly
amused at the thought of a ghostly body part clumsily roaming around a room,
like “Thing” from “The Addams Family.”
Or where does it end? Will a tuft
of hair from my first haircut as a baby haunt the area around my baby book, and
will the wisdom tooth I kept someday terrorize a later occupant of my
room? (I kind of want to think so.)
In that vein, the
house of another friend (Hi Leon!) just after college allegedly had a spirit in
the attic. Only, if it existed, it was
either incredibly weak, or incredibly lame.
Its sole “haunting” consisted of turning on the attic light by itself. (And now I’m picturing some ghost flipping
the switch on and giggling maniacally, thinking, “That’ll show ‘em!” or, “Get
ready to pay an extra three cents for your electric bill this month, puny
mortals!”) Really, when I heard this
story (aside from thinking that the tenants just forgot and left the light on
occasionally, maybe while tipsy, or that there was a simple wiring problem) I
felt bad for the ghost. I mean, c’mon
man, at least put a little more time and thought in your efforts to scare us.
One final spooky
account, in a different way. My friend
Keith was making the interminable drive back home on the East Coast from his
college in Colorado. He was doing so in a run down van. It was going really well for a while. He and his friend were having some really
good conversations along the way. Really
deep, significant stuff—Keith said he felt like he was getting to know his
friend in an unusually rewarding way.
Finally, about three hours from home, Keith had a startling
revelation. He was by himself. The van had a faulty exhaust system, and he
hallucinated his friend’s presence, and the good talks. He wanted to continue, being relatively close,
so he drove the rest of the way with the windows all wide open. (And then hopefully brought the van to a
garage ASAP.) I know there’s no ghost,
but I find this story terrifying. I can
only imagine how disturbing this realization must have been, like some “Fight
Club” style scenario. (Not to mention,
this meant a severely mentally hampered person drove a van for hundreds or
thousands of miles, posing an extreme danger to himself and other motorists.)
Anyway, that’s
it. Feel free to share any of our ghost
stories, in shortened form I guess, in the comments. I always love a good one. Also, just as a reminder, the link to the Coffin Hop is:
http://coffinhop.com/
